When a guy you care about breaks up with you or is taking you for granted, cutting him off might feel like the only move you have left to make him realize your value and get him to miss you.
At the same time, maybe you’re hesitant to let go of him because of what might happen if it doesn’t work.
What if he doesn’t come back…?
I know exactly how it feels to be stuck in this very tricky position, because I’ve been there myself.
My now-husband, who runs this blog with me, broke up with me three times in the first two years of our relationship.
The third time he did it, I was devastated, but I was also at my LIMIT.
Yes, I wanted him back, but I was also so hurt, I didn’t want to see or talk to him.
I didn’t actually cut him off completely back then, but I did limit our contact a lot.
Back then, I wasn’t following any strict plan or rules. I was simply listening to myself and setting boundaries that felt right to me.
Me doing all that is what made us get back together in about a month.
Since then, I’ve helped many other women get their ex back.
Also, so many of you guys shared your stories with me, and that’s how I’ve learned that the no contact rule can seriously backfire.
When done right, cutting him off will make him miss you.
If done wrong, it will only push him further away and make him move on faster.
In this post, I will explain the subtle differences between these two approaches. I’ll also give you tips on what to do to get him to want you back. (Without messing up your chances.)
When You Walk Away From a Man, He Will Come Back
The reason why cutting him off can make him miss you, is because you have to get your ex to experience losing you in order for him to realize your true value to him.
As long as he feels safe and secure that he can always have you back, no matter what, the true impact of the breakup will never hit him!
He will also have no reason to fight for you and try to win you over again.
That’s why you need to walk away from him, at least to some degree, to get him to come back to you.
Like I mentioned before, there are two ways of going about this.
Cutting him off the right way will make him miss you when you’re gone.
Doing no-contact the wrong way will only make him move on faster.
How NOT to Cut Him Off
There is a pattern I observed on how women react to being broken up with.
First they are chasing their ex, trying to prove how much they care and how special the relationship was with apologies, writing letters etc.
But when all their efforts remain fruitless, they inevitably burn out.
And then they cut him off as a last attempt at getting him to want them again.
Unfortunately, there are two big mistakes here, that a lot of women make when doing no-contact that only motivate men to pull away more and start looking for a new relationship.
Cutting Him off Without Warning or Explanation Will Only Create More Damage
The first big mistake is: suddenly going no contact without any warning or explanation.
You’re not communicating anything to your ex, you just stop responding or even ghost him.
The thing about treating someone this way is that it’s a huge breach of trust.
It only breaks things and creates more problems, often in an already struggling relationship, that’s hanging by a thread.
In his head, your ex thinks that you still care about him, at least to some degree. When you cut him off this way, it communicates that you don’t anymore.
Men do not respond well to this kind of rejection.
He’ll think to himself:
“I was right to break up. If she doesn’t care about me anymore, I’m going to go and find somebody else who will”.
When You Cut Him off Completely, You Give Up All Control Over the Situation
The second big mistake women make when cutting off their ex is that they completely stop all communication.
Ironically, a lot of dating and relationship experts recommend that you do full no-contact for a set period of time.
I disagree with this approach.
The problem with it, is that cutting him off completely means giving up all control of what he is doing and whom he is seeing.
Yes, theoretically if you’re broken up, you can’t prevent your ex from dating other women anyway.
But breakups are messy and most of the time men don’t know what they are really doing.
Your ex might start doing things just to provoke you. However, if you’re in full no contact mode, you won’t be able to respond to it in any way.
On top of it all, he will read your behavior as you not being interested in him anymore, and take it as a cue for him to truly leave you and try to move on.
How to Cut Him off to Make Him Miss You
Now that you know the biggest pitfalls no-contact can lead to, let’s finally discuss how to do it in a way that will get you the results you’re hoping for.
Two extremely important things to do when cutting him off are: telling him why you’re doing it, and also leaving some sort of open communication channel.
When Gabriel broke up with me for the third time, he actually wanted to meet up on the next day. Back then, I was just way too angry and hurt to want to see him. So I told him I needed space.
I made it very clear why I was cutting him off and that he can still reach me, if he needs to.
He knew I still cared about him, but I was just upset.
Me communicating that totally changed the power dynamic between us, he felt bad and became apologetic.
After that exchange, we barely talked for a few weeks.
We had an open communication channel. He reached out to me a few times to check in, talk briefly, clarify things etc.
It didn’t make him change his mind about the breakup right away.
Cutting him off didn’t have an immediate effect. In fact, it rarely does.
BUT, today when we talk about it, he agrees that had I cut off all contact, he might have just moved on because he wouldn’t have had the chance to realize he missed me.
This brings me to my next point…
How Long Does It Take a Guy to Realize He Misses You
Guys can be very stubborn. Once they decide they want to break up, they tend to stick with it, at least for a few weeks.
Much like you’ll go through certain phases after a breakup, so will he.
Initially, he is going to be happy with his newfound freedom. At the same time, he’ll also start missing you, the moment he realizes that you’re gone.
He might even start sending you subtle cues that he is waiting for you to get you back.
But whatever his reasons for breaking up were, they are going to outweigh the benefits of having you in his life. At least in the beginning.
That’s why you can expect him to remain distant and guarded in that first stage after the breakup.
This is particularly true if you know your ex to be emotionally unavailable.
Different people need a different amount of time to snap out of this stubborn frame of mind.
But judging from my coaching experience, it generally takes two weeks up to a month after the breakup for an ex to realize he misses you so much, he’ll want to start getting back in touch on a regular basis.
However, this period of time can be much longer if you guys have been together for a couple of years and the breakup happened because you were fighting too much, or due to some other serious relationship issues.
Generally speaking, the bigger the problem, the longer it will take for your ex to let his guard down and start showing you that he still cares.
Additionally, in most cases, cutting him off is NOT going to be enough to get him to come back to you and want to commit to you again.
Getting Him to Want You Back After Cutting Him Off
I know that a lot of you guys hope that doing no-contact will be all that’s needed for your ex to have this sudden realization he made a terrible mistake, do a complete 180, apologize and beg you to take him back.
I get it, I felt the exact same way after our breakups.
It’s hard to deal with being rejected. It’s only natural that you’d want him to take it all back and admit that he was wrong.
Sometimes it doesn’t happen this way, but unfortunately they are very rare.
In most cases, getting your ex back is not so much of a sudden event, but more of a gradual process.
On one hand, it will require you to set boundaries with him and cut him off from his boyfriend privileges.
But at the same time, you also have to reel him in to get him to come out of his stubborn shell.
If you feel lost and a bit hopeless about this whole situation, we can guide you through it in our Get Your Ex Back Course.
Here, you’ll find a step-by-step plan of what to do to get your ex to not only miss you, but also to want to commit to you again.
We’ll also explain in detail why men can act so cool and careless after breakups, and that it’s just a bluff you can get him to drop.
Click here to check out Get Your Ex Back.
In case you want to know more about how Gabriel and I got back together, check out my other post: How I Got Him Back - 5 Ways to Make Your Ex Want You Again
And if you have any questions, leave me a comment, and I’ll get back to you!
Karolina
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- Do Guys Come Back After They Dump You? Mostly Yes, They Do - 26. January, 2023
- 4 Big Reasons Your Ex Won’t Talk to You and What to Do - 17. January, 2023
